Today is Hen Harrier Day. Much is made of the so-called glorious twelfth, the start of the grouse-shooting season. People can make their own minds up about the self-evident fact that if you want to eat grouse, grouse have to die. But this year Hen Harrier Day, two days before the start of the grouse season, has been convened to celebrate and mourn the beautiful hen harrier, the legally protected bird of prey that also has to die to bring grouse to your table, and as a result is almost extinct in England. Hen harrier day is marked by four major events and one minor one. At 10 am there will be a thunderclap (I added my tweet but don’t ask me to explain how it works) and throughout the day people will be gathering at three beautiful locations: South Tyne Trail at Lambley near Haltwhistle to create and assemble a ‘selfie trail’, the Upper Derwent Valley, Derbyshire, but this is now fully subscribed, and the Forest of Bowland, Dunsop Bridge, Lancashire. More details here.

The minor event is me posting the score to Skydancer off to the London Contemporary Chamber Orchestra who give its premiere in October (see What’s On). It’s a short piece that tries to capture the bleak landscape of our heather moorlands and the bouncing, dancing flight of a pair of skydancers – the other name for hen harriers. That’s also the name of an RSPB project to raise awareness of their plight and highlight the public support this species enjoys, even in grouse-shooting hotspots where a tiny minority threatens the future of this symbol of the British uplands.

My Skydancer won't be the first piece of music to celebrate this wonderful species. RSPB's Alasdair Grubb works at Leighton Moss, Lancashire, and also helps monitor the hen harriers of nearby Forest of Bowland.

"I've been part of the volunteer team keeping an eye on the hen harriers in Bowland. When you see them skydancing it's like a reward for the work you put in. They had a disastrous year last year and I found myself getting really wound up about it. One day when I got home I picked up my guitar and this little song just came to me - it was my way of working out the frustration of working with a species on the brink."

Here's Alasdair's lovely song - also called Skydancer.

Up Here

Linda Goulden’s poems have appeared in magazine and anthology, on local radio, and at Manchester Cathedral. She was 2013 winner of the Nottingham Open Poetry Competition. As Linda says, she “was hatched in Glasgow, raised in Fife, fledged in Manchester and now perches at the edge of the Dark Peak between a canal and a river”. In 2013 she was one of several Peak District poets to write specially for Place – a multi-arts event at Dove Stone RSPB reserve. Linda regularly participates in the Buxton Word Wizards Poetry Slam.

let life loose leaf to view blue through

breathing in clean through green

look for white sound splashed down generous as water

or feel the hit of black rock hard foot it

up here where you taste singing air

Hen Harrier Day sees us launch an occasional series of features and blogs linking uplands, rivers, and sea, that will run through August, September and October.